Attorney General Kwame Raoul was sworn in as the 42nd Attorney General of Illinois in January 2019. Born in Chicago to Haitian immigrants, Kwame brings a lifetime of legal experience and public service to his work as the people’s champion. Kwame defends and upholds the law, protects access to health care and reproductive rights, and fights for equal rights.
As the state’s chief legal and law enforcement officer, Kwame works in a bipartisan manner with prosecutors and police chiefs across Illinois to fight crime and develop criminal justice policy. Kwame partners with federal and local law enforcement to prosecute murder, violent crimes, crimes of sexual violence and gun trafficking.
Kwame created the state’s first Organized Retail Crime Task Force with law enforcement partners to investigate smash-and-grab crimes. The Task Force recently busted a car theft ring and has recovered over $1 million in stolen merchandise. He also partners with the FBI to investigate unemployment insurance fraud and other COVID-related fraud.
To fight the prevalence of gun violence, Kwame works in partnership with the U.S. Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center to conduct trainings to prevent mass shooting threats in schools, places of worship, and other public places. Kwame also sued to revoke the license of a rogue gun manufacturer that produced cheap guns criminals use in carjackings and other crimes.
Kwame understands the importance of protecting our children and leads the Illinois Crimes Against Children Task Force that investigates and prosecutes online predators for preying on children in communities across the state.
Kwame also works to reduce the long-lasting effects of violence and provide support to survivors and their families through his work to improve Illinois’ Crime Victims Compensation Program and increase funding for the Violent Crime Victims Assistance Program that provides financial support to victims and witnesses of violent crime.
Access to health care is particularly important for Kwame as Attorney General and for his own personal health journey. As a cancer survivor, Kwame benefitted from early detection and excellent medical care, solidifying his commitment to protect and defend everyone’s ability to access health care to build a healthy future.
A woman’s right to make her own health care decisions is part of that critical work. Kwame is leading national efforts to protect access to reproductive healthcare in response to an increasing number of states, especially in the Midwest, that seek to deny women the reproductive rights afforded in Roe v. Wade. Kwame is also a national leader in the fight for women’s equality to ensure the Equal Rights Amendment is recognized as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution.
Together with state attorneys general across the country, Kwame works to protect voting rights and, during the Trump administration, critically defended our democracy from extremism and rollbacks of Obama-era progress.
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kwame continues to defend lifesaving COVID mitigations to prevent more illness and death and defends safeguards for essential workers.
Kwame also prioritizes protecting the rights of workers in Illinois, creating a Worker Protection Unit in his office that enforces violations of worker protection laws. Kwame also leads a statewide task force to prevent discrimination, wage theft, misclassification, and other unlawful practices affecting Illinois workers.
To combat the epidemic of prescription drug addiction in our country, Kwame has filed lawsuits to hold drug manufacturers accountable for peddling opioids, which resulted in millions of dollars in relief for Illinois communities that have felt the devastating impacts of opioid addiction.
Since taking office, Kwame has recovered over $180 million in taxpayer money for Illinois through his office’s litigation and collection efforts. Kwame has been honored as Public Official of the Year by the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police for his leadership on criminal justice matters and by Planned Parenthood of Illinois with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his critical work to protect access to reproductive health care.
Before his election to Attorney General in November 2018, Kwame was a state senator for 14 years and a leading voice for equal rights and a woman’s right to choose. Kwame sponsored landmark legislation to abolish the death penalty, require mandatory background checks on private transfers of guns, reform workers’ compensation, and enact some of the strongest voting rights protections in the nation.
Kwame began his legal career as a prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office, previously served as a senior staff attorney for the City Colleges of Chicago and was a partner at two national law firms.
Kwame is a graduate of DePaul University and earned his law degree from Chicago-Kent College of Law. He is married to Dr. Lisa Moore, and the couple are the parents of Che, Mizan, John, and Madison.